Smith Studio

Lost, Remains Series, wax and oil on wood panel

Lavendar, remains Series, wax and oil on wood panel

Passage

In bed he stretches his arms, his legs, wind-up hands in the air keeping

himself alive. His feet never stop as he blows and whistles. We are thinking

he is going to die. But he doesn’t. He watches the big screen that sends him

visions while he marches to the music in his head and sings softly under his

breath, whistling to us to tell him which door.

“You’ll know we say. You’ll know.”

“Which door?” Whispering off into silence.

Uncomfortable we wish for the rattling of his breath. It doesn’t come.

She whispers to him, “Breathe. Breathe.”

Her eyes turn to me pleading with me to make him take a breath. Crazy, I

laugh. My super powers are gone. No longer equipped to heal I am silent.

A holy ghost enters and his breath becomes rattled with sound, the sound

of breathing. My mother sings. His soul lingers on her tongue waiting for

the last kiss. It could be months it could be days it could be moments.

Still the kiss waits.  

Stealing Matter

A collection of poems about aging and death.

Cro-Magnon Fall

It was fall and she took a spill in memory of the season

assuming that she knew it was fall or autumn, the word

that she can never remember for the memory test which

would score her at a higher level and make her entry

back into the world an easier transition for those of us who

have stood daily vigils by her bed for two months now.

Swan diving, she crashed into a void where the tangle

in her brain tipped her right over into the peanut butter jar

and she stuck.

Stuck to the cells that transformed her speech into gibberish

and blacken both of her eyes until my brother could no longer

look upon her face and exited down the nearest hall to manage

pain for which there are no words.

“Something happened to me,” she repeats. I nod, I am tired

of saying yes. “It was really bad,” she says. I nod again

touching the ninety-one year old forehead where I washed

the blood from her face in memory of her Christ who washed

his disciples’ feet, cleansing them, restoring them.

My healing powers are elusive.

It was autumn and there would be no resurrections from this

grave. Thieves hung on either side of her having stolen gray

matter, selling it in the underground railroad to those in desperate

need.

She was Cro-Magnon woman. Winter was coming and she

needed furs and a safe cave to hide in.

Slipping into the hole where her mind has been, she hid there for

months, eating bison flesh and spewing words in unknown tongues

that made archeologists summon linguistic experts to decipher, notate

and publish in scientific journals for future generations to come

while converts made pilgrimages to see her.

Whispering in the entrance to her cave we heard them say, “This

is as bad as it gets.”

The den became unbearable as it was crowded with experts who

argued the state of their find. Sitters stayed stuck to walls hanging

like glassy eyed pieces of art while Cro-Magnon woman cleaved to

her cave not inching a toe, a finger or a nose outward, until an open

window spurred a breeze across her face and simple gestures were

made plain as the words, “I’m thirsty,” fell from her mouth and

made us live again.